Well it certainly doesn’t appear that cold will make it to the western flank of Europe (south of Scand) this week as Atlantic low pressure appears too dominant. I know back last week and up till Saturday, I believed the models would flip back to what they had originally with cold making it to Ireland but the consistency appears to be overwhelming at keeping lower than normal heights throughout the northeast Atlantic. That means the cold that IS building over Scandinavia and northeast Europe, can’t go anywhere. We will have a ‘cool’, unsettled pattern but it’s looking unlikely to be cold with no easterly flow or trough with with northerly flow.
Up till now, winter has been a no show and yes, I had it cold really from Christmas-New Year, so the forecast has been a bust, I will admit that and make that quite clear.
However, while many wish cast cold or indeed warm, I have given you the evidence to back up my forecasts and I STILL BELIEVE winter will come, especially given the fact that colder air is now pushing into our region of the hemisphere and there’s still a degree of northern blocking, just nothing supportive of cold here.
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The United States has certainly seen some decent winter compared to the past 2, with the focus of cold being from Siberia straight over top of the pole and into the Lower 48. I’ve always said that once North America warms and it has, Europe should turn cold and it has and is. When going by the trend to colder for the UK/W Europe in the models early last week, the potential for a -NAO along with a -AO, combined by longer range modelling support (CFSv2) and the SST anomalies, ALL pointed to cold this week. Yet again, the Atlantic cheats us. Could this winter turn out to be another 2011-12? Perhaps BUT, I stand by the fact that the Atlantic temp profile is primed for an eventual colder pattern and the stratospheric situation also looks promising for the late winter period. I guess you could argue that a LATE winter cold blast is too little too late but, February is by no means too late despite the daytime increase. Many bitter blasts has come late January and February and you only have to go back to last year to see what March can do.
Here’s the AO trend and forecast up till now. Note it went negative around the time the US shivered and note it’s expected to go back negative. We could end up seeing similar to last year when we had REAL WINTER at the end and into spring, although, if that occurs I think it will be earlier, say in February rather than March.
NAO has NOT been conducive with no true blocking north or west of the UK and with high pressure building over Scandinavia, unfortunately low pressure appears too close with fronts holding back the cold this week but it’s going to be interesting whether the Atlantic can get held and push back.
If you’ve followed me for a while now, you’ll know well my theories and when looking at this CURRENT water temp anomaly chart, it shows a classic tripole which supports a cold pattern for both the eastern US and western Europe. Up till now, we haven’t seen the feedback. The US has been cold but without a blocking high over the Atlantic, arctic air and troughs have never been able to lock in.
The CFSv2 has persistently shown the right setup for cold but the reality of the pattern has been quite different.
While the ECMWF and GFS continue to show an Atlantic-Arctic fight with the Atlantic winning and holding ground over the UK and western lowland Europe, we must watch this over the next 10 days and particularly as we head for February. I still believe it’s only a matter of time before the door is opened.
Light at the end of the tunnel?
While the operational models don’t show what we’re looking for, we should however consider the textbook North Atlantic tripole with warmest waters NORTH of the UK between Greenland and just north of Scandinavia, that is still where the strongest heights should set up, albeit far later into the winter than I thought, but this still looks good and what may look even more promising is the evolution of a warming of the stratosphere AROUND the edges of the arctic. No it’s not a full blown sudden strat warming but, like we saw with the US outbreak, get the warming in the right region and it can cause a significant freeze.
Pay attention to the trend in strat temps now through 240 hours and note the axis of the vortex is not only off the pole but that stretched out cold pool is turning, shifting the dagger from North America towards Europe, eventually showing the same setup which delivered the USA’s coldest blast in 20 years. This would be a February event if materialised.
SEE VIDEO WHICH LOOKS AT THIS WEEK MORE CLOSELY.
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There is hope in the strat models for late january at the moment. That’s what most weather buffs are talking about at the moment on the Danish weather forum that I frequentlly visit. That’s the new hope for proper winter now that the forecasted cold spell lost its nerve. So I am keeping my fingers crossed for late January/early february.
We had our first widespread snow in Denmark for this winter here today by the way. It didn’t last very long, though, But for a few hours the ground was covedered with a thin layer of white and the wind blew the falling snow around and it felt like a rather harsh winter day. Now the temp. has climbed to +1C and the precipetation has changed into rain. At least we won’t have 8-10C and wind from SW the coming days, though, it seems. So while actually being really cold and with snow it will at least feel a bit more like winter with temps. between 0 and 5C. So far this winter has felt more like Autumn after Danish standards. 😉
Edit: So while actually NOT being really cold and with snow. (It would be nice with an edit function, Mark 🙂 )